Articles in latest PBSR

From the Liverpool Classics List:

Throughout its history, Papers of the British School at Rome (PBSR) has published many significant articles covering all aspects of Pompeii and Herculaneum. The latest issue contains two articles by leading scholars which are free of charge to access until 31st January 2014.


Domenico Camardo’s article brings together new data that disputes the ‘re-discovery’ of Herculaneum in 1710, offering new perspectives on our understanding of the site. J.C. Fant et. al. offer a fascinating insight into the use of marble in the bars and shops of Pompeii and Herculaneum, revealing information about the use of architectural materials in the Vesuvian cities and the pan-Mediterranean marble trade.
You can also read a collection of related papers from across the PBSR archive that address various aspects of the study of Pompeii and Herculaneum. View the full selection here:
http://journals.cambridge.org/romph
In conjunction with the Doctor Who 50th Anniversary we're pleased to be hosting Fiona Hobden's Blog post History meets fiction in Doctor Who, ‘The Fires of Pompeii’, which talks about her Greece & Rome article on the same theme. Read the Blog post and access the Doctor Who and time travel article selection here:

http://blog.journals.cambridge.org/2013/11/history-meets-fiction-in-doctor-who-the-fires-of-pompeii/

Epigraphical database: The Ancient Graffiti Project

Strangely enough, wandering on in the Internet I casually found this promising project lead by Rebecca Benefiel: The Ancient Graffiti Project

"The website provides a search engine for locating and studying graffiti of the early Roman empire from the cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum.

Ancient graffiti, inscriptions that have been incised or scratched into wall-plaster, comprise a special branch of epigraphy. They differ from inscriptions on stone in several respects. An inscription on stone may be commemorative, dedicatory, sacred (to name just a few classes of inscription), but in almost all cases forethought has gone into the preparation of the text and the inscribed monument. Graffiti, by contrast, are more often the result of spontaneous composition and are the handwritten creation of the “man on the street.” Since graffiti are scratched into friable wall-plaster, they are more easily perishable, but when they do survive they are almost always found in-situ, unlike many stone inscriptions that have survived to the present day through re-use".

As for now, there is a case-sudy on Insula I 8. The project uses the Pompeii Bibliography and Mapping Project map and the graffiti texts are inserted in the EAGLE database.

Sales: Vendita promozionale delle pubblicazioni dell'EFR (28, 29 & 30 novembre 2013)

L'École française de Rome è lieta di proporvi una grande vendita promozionale di libri di fine anno. A tariffa vantagiosa, questi titoli potranno continuare a vivere e a fare la felicità di nuovi lettori e studenti. Questa vendita è organizzara presso la sede di Piazza Navona, è sarà l'occasion di scoprirla complemente restaurata. La lista dei libri scontati al 25 o al 50 % si può scaricare.

Inoltre, potete prenotare i libri di vostra scelta con il buono d'ordine  scaricato da compilare e mandare per posta elettronica  a richard.figuier [at] efrome.it. In questo caso, i libri possono essere prenotati, ma il ritiro dovrà avvenire durante i giorni della vendita.

Tra i numerosi titoli, due su Pompei ed Ercolano: 

Van Andringa W., Quotidien des dieux et des hommes : la vie religieuse dans les cités du Vésuve à l’époque romaine, Rome, École française de Rome (coll. Bibliothèque des Écoles françaises d’Athènes et de Rome, 337), 2009, 404 p. 26€ anzichè 87€ (-75%).

 

Monteix N., Les lieux de métier. Boutiques et ateliers d’Herculanum, Rome, École française de Rome (coll. BEFAR, 344), 2010, xiv - 478 p. 38€ anzichè 75€ (errore sull'elenco prezzi, -50%)

Articles: "Archéologie et religion : le sanctuaire dionysiaque de S. Abbondio à Pompéi"

Just out, 5 articles about the 2008 excavations in Sant'Abbondio temple, in MEFRA 125, 1, 2013

Archéologie et religion : le sanctuaire dionysiaque de S. Abbondio à Pompéi

William Van Andringa, Introduction

Thomas Creissen et William Van Andringa, De l’analyse stratigraphique au culte de Loufir/Liber

Jordi Principal, Reflexiones cronológicas sobre las fases constructivas del santuario de S. Abbondio

Stéphanie Wyler, Dionysos/Loufir/Liber et sa parèdre

Timo Sironen, Documentazione epigrafica osca del santuario suburbano delle divinità dionisiache a S. Abbondio [Texte intégral]

Véronique Zech-Matterne et Tarek Oueslati, Déchets erratiques et vestiges rituels

William Van Andringa, Bibliographie générale du dossier « Archéologie et religion : le sanctuaire dionysiaque de S. Abbondio à Pompéi »

Call for papers: Rethinking ancient jewellery

RETHINKING ANCIENT JEWELLERY
 

One-day international workshop
Call for Papers
held at the Faculty of Archaeology, Leiden University
07 December 2013

Taking its point of departure from several recent “holistic” approaches towards the investigation of ancient jewellery, this workshop reassess current developments in the field. This workshop will treat ancient jewellery not just as precious ornaments or works of art but as artefacts that should be used as a source material in investigations of various aspects of ancient society. Unfortunately, ancient jewellery has traditionally been consigned to museum catalogues or site reports, with a concentration on form and material. The principal goal of these studies has been to establish dates for individual pieces and create workable typologies. This workshop is designed to seek new methodological approaches and will revise how ancient jewellery is described and classified from art historical, archaeological and technological perspectives.

The one-day workshop aims to bring together scholars studying ancient jewellery and personal adornment with the goal of not only discussing current perspectives and new methodologies but also to create a platform of interdisciplinary exchange for the study of such material. The workshop will consist out of two sessions. The first will focus on jewellery from the Roman period, while the second will bring together scholars working on other temporal and cultural areas of ancient adornment to bring out wider methodological approaches to the study of ancient jewellery (that might be applied to other periods). Possible topics could include aspects of technology, the sources and trade of precious material, the social meaning of jewellery and new methodologies for analyzing ancient jewellery; however, other topics related to ancient jewellery are also welcome.

___________________________________________________________

We invite paper abstracts on any topic of ancient jewellery and personal adornment with a focus on re-evaluation and methodological innovations. Papers should be 20 – 25 minutes in length and will be followed by 5 minutes for questions and discussion. Please submit an abstract of no more than 300 words that describes the paper that you propose to present at the workshop on 7 December 2013. Abstracts should be accompanied by a short personal statement about yourself and your research interests.

Please email abstracts and statements to Courtney Ward at courtney.ward@arch.ox.ac.uk by 17 November 2013 (feedback will be given on 20 November). The language for this workshop is English.
Organizers: Courtney Ward (University of Oxford) and Natascha Sojc (Leiden University)
For more information email: courtney.ward@arch.ox.ac.uk; n.sojc@arch.leidenuniv.nl

LA RELIGIÓN Y EL COTIDIANO ROMANO: EL EJEMPLO DE LAS PAREDES DE POMPEYA

In what concerns on Roman religion, scholars usually consider its political aspects. This approach was developed on a colonial context during the 19^th, based upon an idea of the Roman Empire as a political and cultural unit. As it is based on a Roman colonial image derived from literary sources, I believe it tends to obscure differences. The main idea of this paper is to rethink some aspects of Roman religion considering the material culture and Epigraphy. I will focus on the  common people religiosity during the beginning of the Principate to discuss two interrelated topics. First I will focus in some concepts and theory on Roman religion and then I will explore how Epigraphy - the graffiti from Pompeii – can contribute to discuss the common people religiosity. The Epigraphic evidence is used in this paper to help us to rethink social relationships and Roman identity in a less normative experience. 

           

Since Pompeii was a city with a very active commercial life in the beginning of the Principate, many people have walked down its streets and scratched their messages on its walls. The amount of recorded inscriptions sum nearly eleven thousand, and the urban environment with active daily life provide us with data to understand Roman everyday life from new perspectives, especially those regarding the common people. This reflection is not intended to provoke a split between popular and erudite culture; on the contrary, it seeks ways to explore the diversity of ways to understand Roman religiosity. To consider the contrast and the circularity of perceptions may be an alternative way for us to understand how the different types of worldviews are formed, to explore their meanings may be a way to understand the Roman past in a more plural way. In this sense, the current paper aims to deal with Roman inscriptions, in this case graffiti on walls depicting Venus, from a perspective that considers the material context in which they were found, seeking to create alternative means to interpret the everyday life of common people, as well as their religiosity.

Although most of these inscriptions are concise, through case studies of thoughtfully selected samples it is possible to recover voices otherwise seldom heard by scholars. In this context, the graffiti still direct our attention to a specific type of discourse, one encompassing socially constructed and reinterpreted memories. One may consider the graffiti to be fragmentary, but they still remind us of anonymous men and women who suffered, prayed, loved or argued. In a word, they lived. And as they lived they were not alone, but shared their values and experiences and can become important sources for scholars who seek to understand the Roman diversity.

I also believe that these epigraphic sources are important evidence for capturing religiosity in different spheres: Venus’ presence can be found not only on temples protecting the city, but in different parts of the city closer to any person. The goddess is commemorated or challenged by common people in their search for a better life. In this context, those graffiti challenge us to deconstruct analytical categories based on the idea of the political means of Roman religiosity, allowing us to envision them in a complex social context of interaction with men and women of different social backgrounds and ethnic origins. This perspective should remind us that the purpose of archaeology is to study the historical nature of specific social, cultural, and gender relationships, observing, in this case, the details and complexities of the Roman past, and avoiding universal assumptions. Instead of a uniform, or global, interpretation of what Roman religion should be this epigraphic evidence focuses on local variety, allowing us to avoid approaches based upon western notions of Christian superiority. 

Keywords: Roman common people, religion, graffiti, Epigraphy.

The full paper was originally publish in Spanish at Pablo Oscariz's (ed.) book, cf: GARRAFFONI, R. S. . La religión y el cotidiano romano: el exemplo de las paredes de Pompeya. In: Pablo Ozcáriz Gil. (Ed.). La memoria en la piedra. Estudios sobre grafitos históricos. Navarra: Editora del Gobierno de Navarra, 2012, p. 204-219.